Abstract

When a mooring line needs to be cast from ship to shore over a lengthy distance, this can be accomplished by utilizing the concept of centrifugal potential energy. Swinging the weight in circular motion in a vertical plane, and building it up to a high angular speed is a means of storing up pressure. The weight can then be released underarm, resulting in a projectile with kinetic energy corresponding to the stored centrifugal potential energy. We can of course choose to deny the existence of this centrifugal pressure and explain the phenomenon on the grounds that we are merely witnessing the tendency of an object to move in a straight line in the absence of an applied force. But we can only indulge in this denial in the absence of a radial or a solenoidal field, and such fields exist everywhere. It will now be shown how centrifugal force corresponds to positive electric charge, kinetic energy, and inertia, and how a magnetic field is a particular manifestation of inertia.